


K.

by LivinOnARarePair



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Miscommunication, Trade Aftermath, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:33:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2283654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivinOnARarePair/pseuds/LivinOnARarePair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claude should have said something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	K.

How does this always happen?

Every time Claude grows attached to someone, they are taken from him. It had happened with Danny, and now it’s happening again, with Scott.

He’s in Vegas when he finds out. He wakes up and checks his phone. He smiles to himself, seeing Scott’s name light up his screen. The smile falls, though, when he reads the message: ‘Got traded to Columbus.’

Surely it’s a joke. Claude texts back, ‘Very funny. Don’t be stupid.’

‘Not kidding. Im gone.’

Claude decides to investigate. There’s an article on the NHL app about the trade, and it’s all over Twitter when he checks there. Growing desperate, he goes so far as to Google it, only to find link after link confirming the news. Claude gets this weird sinking feeling in his stomach. He switches back to his messages and texts, ‘We need to talk.’

‘Im busy all day.’

‘Tonight then.’

‘K.’

K. That’s all he gets. A stupid fucking ‘K.’

That’s the other thing. Claude loves Scott, but to Scott, Claude’s just a convenient fuck. They’d started spending more and more time together as the seasons passed, and somewhere along the way, Claude fell. Hard. He’d still been with Danny, then, and he was wracked with guilt. Danny figured it out pretty easily when Claude couldn’t look at him when they had sex. He’d been really nice about it, sitting up half the night and talking to Claude about it. Claude had told Danny he still loved him, but that he loved Scott, too. Danny had nodded patiently, kissed him on the forehead, and said. “I know. I love you, too, kiddo. But you need to do what’s best for you.”

The next day, Claude and Scott had gone out to lunch, and Claude had casually brought it up. And Scott had taken him home and fucked him. After, Claude had fit himself against Scott’s side, and Scott . . . had asked if he was cold. It quickly became clear that Claude’s intentions had been _un_ clear. Scott saw him as nothing more than a convenient lay. Claude talked to Danny about it, and Danny had told him that he just needed to talk to Scott. And Claude was going to. He was. Really.

And then Danny was traded. Claude texted Scott, because he just really needed someone to be there for him. Scott hadn’t texted back.

Without Danny there, constantly telling him to talk to Scott, Claude continued to put it off. And now Scott was leaving him, too.

He needs to get up and get ready to go, but he just can’t right now. Not yet. He texts Danny instead, and Danny actually calls him. He lets Claude be sad and does his best to comfort him, and then, Danny asks, so quietly Claude barely hears him, “Did you ever tell him?”

“No,” Claude says quietly.

Danny doesn’t say anything about it, just continues to try to reassure Claude. Claude eventually has to go. He goes through his day on autopilot, impatiently waiting for this evening when he can talk to Scott. He gets back to his room around eleven that night, sinks into his bed, and makes the call. It goes straight to voicemail.

They text stiltedly through the next two days, figuring out that if Claude leaves the day before he was going to, he can be back on Scott’s last day in Philly. Claude gets the last seat on the earliest flight he can find, a middle seat in coach, but in only a handful of hours, he’s back in Philly. He texts Scott, and Scott tells him to meet him at a hotel on the outskirts of town. When he knocks on the door, Scott opens it, and Claude’s breath catches. Scott looks the same as he did the last time Claude saw him, but it just seems different now, knowing that they’re not going to be playing together anymore.

“Hey, come on in,” Scott says, letting Claude in. “Sorry this place is kind of a dump. Just moved out of the apartment yesterday and leaving tonight, so I didn’t think I needed to stay anywhere fancy.”

Claude doesn’t even notice the room. He only has eyes for Scott right now. “You’re leaving tonight? I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow.”

“Nope,” Scott says. “Eleven o’clock tonight.”

That means . . . They only have a few hours left.

“So are we doing this?” Scott asks, pushing Claude’s jacket off his shoulders.

“Doing what?” Claude asks dumbly.

“That’s why you’re here, right? So we can hook up one last time?”

“I . . .” No. We need to talk. There’s something I have to tell you. “Sure.”

They undress mechanically, and Scott pushes Claude down onto the bed gently. He goes to the desk and retrieves the lube from his bag, tossing it to Claude. Claude gets to work opening himself up, because he knows that’s how Scott prefers it, knows Scott doesn’t particularly like to do this part himself because he gets nothing out of it. So Claude stretches himself while Scott rolls a condom on and slicks up. And then Scott is pushing Claude back, pushing Claude’s knees to his chest, and pushing in without preamble. He sets a quick pace, just using Claude’s body, really, to chase his own release, but Claude stops him.

“Could you, um, go a little slower?” he asks. “It’s been a while.”

It’s a bad excuse and a lie. Really, he just wants to savour this. If it’s going to be the last time he gets to be with Scott like this, Claude is going to take every second of it.

Scott does slow down some, though he’s still moving quicker than Claude would like, but Claude wants to take it slow, make it last as long as they can, and he knows Scott wouldn’t go for that. And Scott always keeps his eyes closed, but Claude doesn’t, can’t. He watches Scott’s face, doesn’t blink any more than he has to because if this is the last time, he doesn’t want to miss a second of it. Usually he would worm a hand between them to stroke himself off, because Scott never bothers to help him out, but not this time. Scott picks up pace again, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, but Claude’s not going to ask him to slow down again, doesn’t want Scott to know anything’s up.

He wants to kiss Scott, but they don’t do that. They kissed once, that first time. Claude had practically seen angels or something, but Scott didn’t seem to like it, so Claude didn’t push it.

Scott finishes first, unsurprisingly, stilling and shuddering above Claude. He pulls out and rolls to lay beside Claude, leaving Claude hard and waiting.

“Scott, can you . . . ?”

Scott cracks an eye open to look over at him, and Claude nods down to where his cock is still curved up against his stomach. Scott groans like it’s such a hardship.

“Please?” Claude asks quietly.

Scott reaches over and gets a hand around Claude. He doesn’t go for any kind of finesse, just strokes him fast. This doesn’t happen very often, only when they’d needed to be quick and had traded handjobs. Or when Claude had blown Scott, and Scott returned only a handjob. And he never tried to match Claude’s finesse, always just stroking fast and getting it over with. He lets go when Claude comes, doesn’t stroke him through it, but Claude’s used to that, too.

Claude shivers and starts to move closer to Scott, just wanting to be close to him while he can, but Scott moves away. “Go away; you’re gross,” he says, no heat to the words. They sting anyway. “Hey, I’m gonna go get some ice. Get cleaned up, and we’ll do dinner or something.”

And he gets up, gets dressed, and leaves.

“But . . . ,” Claude says into the quiet, turning his face into Scott’s pillow. “I love you.”


End file.
